Better Than One
by MurderingMiss
Summary: Chapter Three is up!
1. Bad Day

Better Than One by DocCassieOck  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I just write. Please don't sue me.  
  
Setting: Just after the end of the second movie. Harry has just found his father's Goblin room, and is starting to go crazy himself. The news of Octavius' death is just reaching his daughter Cassandra, a nuclear physicist like her father, residing in Texas. The news tears Cassandra apart, and, having started the same research as her father, decides to go to New York to visit the unstable Harry Osborn. They had already met more than once, and Harry thought he was falling in love with her after the wake of his ruined romance with Mary Jane. Cassandra, already half-insane herself by the time she reaches the Big Apple, does something that will change the face of terror for everyone in that city...  
  
"Oh my God." Harry Osborn could barely breathe as he made his way through the cavern behind the shattered mirror that he had, until now, never known that his father had installed. Coming to a shelf filled with tubes of bright green liquid, Harry felt the fear rise up in his throat. "The performance enhancers. Oh, Jesus. Oh my God. Dad was experimenting on himself with the performance enhancers...and he became the Green Goblin." Suddenly he could no longer stand. His knees hit the floor as the realization of what was happening washed over him. Once again, he could hear that laughter in his head. Faint...manic...ominous. Looking at the shelves of small orange bombs, "pumpkin bombs," that guy from the Daily Bugle had dubbed them, Harry remembered from somewhere in his mind that seemed very far away, he shivered involuntarily, thinking of how many people died on account of those little things that were in his house, waiting, all this time. The laughter. His father's insane laughter, echoing through his skull. All at once, Harry's energy seemed to flood back through him with a ferocity that near made him fall over again. "You're dead!" he screamed into the darkness. "You're dead! Peter killed you, you're dead, buried, rotting, and out of my life! You hear me? You hear me, you psychotic son of a bitch?!" Harry grabbed a tube of the performance enhancer and threw it without direction at the first thing he laid his frantic eyes on. It shattered against the closest brick wall, and instead of feeling better, Harry just felt sick. The small sound of broken glass, tinkling gently to the floor, seemed to instill in him a secondary fear. He's alone now. Harry sat down, terrified, and hugging his knees, heard that maddening cackle start up in his head once more. It didn't make him angry this time. He couldn't move, for the paralyzing agony he felt now. "Harry...Harry, you weak little thing. Look at you. Crying on the floor, panting like that sick old dog of yours you used to have. Get up." Almost as if he no longer had control over his body, Harry stood, just like Norman's voice commanded him to. Suddenly, Harry could see his father standing in front of him. Just as he had been standing in the mirror, not more than half an hour ago. It didn't shock him. He was too mesmerized by fear to even know shock now. Shoulders sagging pathetically, he raised his eyes to meet the crazy blue ones of his dead father. "What do you want from me?" Harry asked, tears racking his voice. "Why can't you just be dead?" A sick smile crept hauntingly across the serpentine face of Norman. "What do I want from you? Why Harry, you know exactly what I want from you. I told you, but you threw a dagger at me. Who'dve thunk it?" That laughter. This time, Harry could see it playing across Norman's face. It wasn't the laugh he remembered of his father...that playful, hearty laugh...no, this one was high, cold, and completely insane. His father's eyes were narrowed dangerously, one eyebrow raised slightly, to give him an odd inquisitive look that would seem almost amusing if it didn't lend a horrifying air to the whole effect. Norman Osborn looked like Satan himself as he stood, black shirt undone to the third button, untucked, black trousers, black wingtip shoes...all black. Norman only wore all black one time before, and that was the last time Harry had seen him alive. Harry didn't remember his father's hair having such a violent auburn shade, either. "I...I can't avenge you, Dad. I can't kill Pete. He's my best friend. I can't kill him." Tears were streaming down Harry's face now as he sobbed the words out to the ghost of the man he loved more than anything else. That evilly amused look didn't leave Norman's face as he listened to his son's plea. "I don't know why Pete did it, but he did." Harry staggered two feet to his left and sunk once again to the floor. Finally that twisted grin left Norman's face, and he sauntered over and sat by his son, arms across knees. This man, no, this thing that looked like his father made Harry want to scream as it adjusted its sitting position to one of more comfort. "Please tell me what you want," Harry whispered. "I feel like I'm losing my mind. My father, Norman Raleigh Osborn, died nearly a year and a half ago. I can't possibly be talking to him. He is gone." Harry had stopped crying, but his eyes were still widened in disbelieving shock, the whites visible around the entire edge of his iris. Norman snorted. "Dead. What is all this talk of 'dead' anyway? 'Dead' is nothing but bullshit. I'm here...in your head. Like I said before, Harry, I'm alive in you. I always will be. Now tell me...since I was murdered, taken from you by Spider-Man, all you wanted was to get revenge. To torture that web- slinging bastard and then kill him. Am I right? I watch you, Harry, my son. Night and day." The horror-movie smile returned to Norman's lips. "Oh, Harry..." he crooned, turning those ice-blue eyes upon the shaking man next to him. "Harry, you are losing your mind." Norman started to cackle, and as he stood up, his manic, insane, earsplitting laughter turned into a shriek. 


	2. Misery, Misery

**Better Than One**

**Chapter Two: Misery, Misery**

by DocCassieOck  
  
Disclaimer: Same old song.  
  
Summary: Cassandra Octavius finds out her father is dead and travels to New York. Harry and Cassandra, both crazed by now, start a strange kind of romance and plot the demise of Spider-Man.  
  
The applause in the state-of-the-art Texas thermonuclear physics lab was tumultuous to say the least, as a pretty, young, dark-haired scientist of no more than 26 stood, modestly, waiting for the accolade to cease. She would be waiting for a while: the spectacular feat she just accomplished left many of the seasoned scientists dumbfounded, mouths hanging agape with disbelief at the miracle of nuclear physics just performed by this...this child.  
  
"Thank you, my friends! I know that I definitely didn't deserve such a hearty round of applause..." There was scattered laughter among the scholars here, "...but I most certainly am appreciative of it. It goes without saying that this miracle of modern science (pardon my cliché) would not be possible without the generous funding from Oscorp, a truly brilliant corporation based out of New York." Here she gestured for a representative of said brilliant New York corporation to stand, and so he did, to light applause. Once the rep had seated himself, the young doctor continued. "I would also like to add, my friends, that I would never have been able to have completed the nearly four years of research, testing, and development necessary to have completed this fusion reactor seen here had it not been for my father, the brilliant nuclear physicist Dr. Otto Octavius. Sadly, he could not be with us today, as he is in New York City, undoubtedly quite busy on his own project of fusion reaction. Nonetheless, please join me in giving my father a round of applause!" Here, Dr. Cassandra Octavius started clapping furiously, a huge, smile breaking over her beautiful features. The tumult began again, as the modest Dr. Octavius bowed out of the lab.  
  
"_Mein Gott_," Cassandra muttered as she made her way down the long, bleakly modern corridor that lead to her office. Once inside, she stripped off her white lab coat and, not bothering to hang it up, slumped onto the couch, grabbed a bottle of Smirnoff, and picked up the phone. Her aunt was in England visiting her fiancé, and she was expecting her niece to call right after her presentation. Dialing the seemingly endless string of country codes, city codes, and then finally her aunt's telephone number itself, Cassie thought fleetingly about her father's visit come the morrow. As the phone rang, and the odd ocean noise that always accompanied transatlantic phone calls started, she began wondering exactly how her dad's project was coming along. She remembered reading about some sort of lab accident in New York that happened a few days ago, but the details were sketchy outside of that state. Suddenly, her aunt, Sandy Octavius, answered.  
  
"Hello?"

"Good even, fine lady!" Cassandra exclaimed to her aunt.  
  
"Cassie! Oh, hey love! How did your demonstration go?" Sandy asked hurriedly.  
  
"Terrific. Oscorp should continue their funding to both Octavius scientists for at least another five years now. I can't wait for Daddy's visit tomorrow. It's funny, though...Mom was supposed to call on Tuesday, but she never did. I guess her and Dad were busy, what with the famous Dr. Otto having a presentation of his own." The faint concern in her voice at not having heard from her family departed just as quickly as it came.  
  
"Cassandra, that's great. We're all so proud of you, love." A sigh from her aunt, then several seconds of silence. Cassandra swore the fish were listening.  
  
"So how's Dave?" Cassie inquired. Dave was her aunt's fiancé and although she had never met him face to face, she had spoken to him over instant messenger more than once and loved him like an uncle already. "I haven't heard from him in at least two weeks."  
  
"Oh, he's doing fine. He's at work right now, but these British soap operas are fascinating, let me tell ya. Mm! There's the door. I'll have to run now, babe. Tell Rosie and Otto I love them both. And you."  
  
Cassandra smiled. "I will. Love you back, Aunt Sandy."  
  
After hanging up, Cassandra drank the last of her Smirnoff, tossed the bottle in the trash, locked her office, and headed for home. Luckily, her apartment was not more than seven blocks from the lab she worked in, and it being a warm June evening, she decided to walk instead of catching a bus like usual. As she made her way towards home, she pondered why neither one of her parents had telephoned. Her mother, especially. Otto, she knew, was always abysmal at remembering to return phone calls, but Rosie...that was just plain odd.  
  
She unlocked her apartment door, flicked on the lights, tossed her keys on the table just inside the door and at the same time, glanced down at her answering machine, hoping to see a message. Nothing. "This is so strange," she muttered. "They must be busy with Daddy's fusion research. He does tend to get fanatical about his work." And with this, she shrugged off her concerns, and when she remembered the impending visit of her father tomorrow, felt her heart skip a beat. Cassandra fixed herself a quick dinner, showered, and then went to bed.  
  
The telephone by Cassie's bed rang sharply. Jerking awake, the scientist threw bleary eyes at her alarm clock and, seeing the God-awful hour of 2:36 a.m., snatched the phone out of its cradle and muttered a sleep-clogged "Hello?"  
  
The voice on the other end made her sit bolt upright. "Dr. Octavius? Cassie, it's Harry Osborn." Harry freaking Osborn! The two were practically lovers but had not spoken since late May when he had visited the lab to check the progress of her fusion research. The evening following had been much more productive than the day. But still, there was an undertone of panic in his voice, and she knew that he hadn't called for fun. He sounded like he had been drinking, too. "Hi, Harry. I'm here...what—what's wrong?" She heard him take a trembling breath, and then said, "Cassie, if you're standing up, then I want you to sit down. Okay? Because I have very bad news." All sorts of thoughts began to thunder through Cassandra's mind. He's pulling the funding. Oscorp went under. He has an STD that he forgot to tell her about in May. Disregarding Harry's last request, she stood. I always think better on my feet, she thought. "What? Stop goofing around and tell me." She could feel her heart begin to race. Another deep, trembling sigh from Harry, then the shaking words, "Cassandra, your father and mother are dead."  
  
All at once, her world seemed to stop. She felt tears, horrible, burning tears well up behind her eyes. "No..." she whispered, those accursed tears spilling down her face. Then suddenly, terrible, heart-wrenching anger. "NOOOOOO!" she shrieked, and although she couldn't see it, her agonized scream caused her boyfriend on the other line to hold the receiver at a length for a second. "How? Oh, God, Harry, please tell me. How did they die?" She dropped back onto the bed, sobbing.  
  
"Spider-Man let your father die. Otto tried to re-create a lab experiment—the one with the tridium fusion—and it went horribly wrong. Spider-Man could've pulled him out of the river where he had to drown his experiment...but he saved his girlfriend instead." The words Harry spoke shook with rage and hate, each syllable sharp as a knife.  
  
"And my mother?"  
  
"Killed during the first lab accident. Why didn't they call you?"  
  
"I don't freaking know, Harry! If I knew, I wouldn't be sitting here, in shit-kicking Texas, talking to you about it in the middle of the night, would I?" she screamed. The pain in her voice halted her crying, and she was trembling with rage.  
  
"Who is he?" she asked in a whisper.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Spider-Man! Who else?"  
  
"I..." Harry faltered here. Okay, he thought, She's obviously lost it. Do I tell her it's Pete? The name won't mean a damn thing to her, but she wants to kill him. Then suddenly, he could hear Norman's voice somewhere far off in the black corners of his mind. "And you do, too..." it whispered.  
  
"Well? Do you know this son of a bitch or not, Harry?" she demanded. The fury was controlling her now.  
  
"N—no, Cassie, I don't," Harry stammered. Then suddenly, a voice that was not his own, but rough, and evil, like his father as the Green Goblin's had been, spoke out of his throat. "But we'll catch the little rat and make him pay, won't we?" Dear Heaven, what was that? Harry thought.  
  
Cassandra narrowed her eyes. "Exactly. I'm going to kill him. I will kill Spider-Man." She spun around. The actuators, she thought. The A.I. tentacles that she had developed in Denmark with her father! Yes...perfect...Dad probably had them on when he died...how appropriate with which to kill the spider.  
  
"Cassie? Hello, Cassie? You there?" Harry was asking. She dropped the phone back in its cradle, hanging up in his ear. Cassie grabbed a copy of Wednesday's Houston Post-Centurion. Flipping to the obscure article near the back of the second section that told of her father's lab accident, the one in which Rosie died, she scanned it quickly, trying to pick up any and all information she can. Suddenly, one phrase stuck out at her. "'The crazed scientist, Dr. Otto Octavius, was dubbed 'Doctor Octopus', or 'Doc Ock' for short by the New York tabloid, the Daily Bugle.'" She narrowed her tear-swollen eyes demonically, tossed the paper aside, and stood. "Doctor Octopus, eh?" she sneered to the dark. "It looks like I better take my tentacles on up to the Big Apple and pay ol' Spider-Man a visit."


	3. Devilishly Clever

**Better Than One**

**Chapter Three: Devilishly Clever**

by DocCassieOck

Disclaimer: Three guesses, and the first two don't count.  
  
Summary: Crazy Cassandra Octavius is bringing her set of actuators ("tentacles") to New York so she can take over her father's role as Doctor Octopus, and also to try and convince Harry to carry on the Green Goblin legacy.  
__

_"She's fading away _

_ Away from this world_

_ Drifting like a feather _

_She's not like the other girls _

_She lives in the clouds _

_She talks to the birds _

_Hopeless little one _

_She's not like the other girls I know"  
_  
Cassandra Octavius was a woman with a mission. She plowed down Regal Street, a dark, scheming expression twisting her pretty features. One thought was on her mind: getting herself and her actuators to Oscorp Industries in New York before the sun set that day.  
  
She certainly was a woman with a mission: kill Spider-Man.  
  
When she arrived at her office, after having to endure nearly twenty offers of consolation from co-workers, none of which she really wanted to hear, she snatched up the phone off her desk and hurriedly dialed Harry's number. It rang three times before he answered, sounding much more sober than last night. "Harry Osborn," he recited, sounding not at all like he was one for talking at the early hour it was in New York. Cassie didn't beat around the bush. "Harry, I need a plane down at Bush Intercontinental Airport in four hours. Make sure it can transport a very large object." she snapped. "What? Cass...what do you need a plane for?" Harry sounded genuinely confused. Twit, she thought angrily. The twit she loved.  
  
"Harry, we have a lot of things to discuss once I get to New York. Expect to see me at your lab in no more than five hours. There's a little experiment I have to conduct that can't be done in Houston. Please get this plane down here now." The agonized tone accidentally crept back into her voice. She cursed inwardly for sounding so weak.  
  
"Anything you say, Cassandra, but I still don't understand."  
  
"Hang up, Harry."  
  
"Cassandra?"  
  
"What?" Her voice sounded much gentler this time...lilting and angelic, Harry thought absently.  
  
"Um, Cassandra...I love you."  
  
Love me? Wow, that came out of left field. But still...I guess... "I love you too, Harry."  
  
Cassandra felt the brood returning as she watched the two workers, or minions, whatever Harry referred to his employees as, load the enormous crate which held her prize onto the waiting Oscorp Boeing 747, bound for New York, one way, just for her. She wouldn't have to return to Houston once she completed her task.  
  
Suddenly, something leapt out to her in her mind. Harry, she thought. He hates this Spider-Man character, he killed his father! Sure, old Norman was crazy as a rat in a tin shithouse and was the Green Goblin to boot, but still, he's dead, Harry's pissed...and could be very, very useful to the cause. Start up Harry as the Goblin...and there's not a chance on God's green earth that Spider-Man could win. Not against them both. No way. Now that damn webhead is going to have to fight both Doctor Octopus and the Green Goblin. This struck her as very funny, and she began to giggle as she settled into her seat in the small area in front of the cargo hold. After all, two villains are better than one.  
  
Harry Osborn stood, arms crossed, in one of his best Armani suits, at the entrance to Laboratory 17C, watching Cassandra move nearer and nearer to him. Before she had a chance to speak, Harry put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her so deeply that she actually felt weak in the knees. "I guess you're happy to see me," she said, genuinely surprised at the total outrageousness of his action. "Damn straight I am. Listen, Cassie, I've been thinking. You're right. Spider-Man stole both our families from us, and he needs to pay. I don't know what you have in store, but whatever it is...God, I hope it causes him triple the agony he caused us." His face was hard and cold as stone, and for some reason, Cassandra thought it was wildly sexy.  
  
"Yes. Have someone bring that crate into the lab. We have work to do, and I have to talk to you about something. It's gonna be real good for the cause." A sinfully overjoyed grin leapt onto her face, and waited till the crate was wheeled into the lab before entering. Harry motioned for the workers to leave. He knew this was going to be a very...shall we say, secret experiment, so he picked the remotest, most highly secured lab in the facility. Once they were gone, he took off his jacket and tie, picked up a crowbar, and started opening the monstrously large crate. "Jesus Christ, Cassandra, what did you bring?" he grunted, ripping off slats of wood as he spoke. She smiled her idyllically insane smile and said, "Remember Daddy's fusion experiment? The one that had, um, explosive results in his laboratory?" She sounded as level-headed as ever, but Harry could tell that a tempest was raging just below that calm exterior. "Yes," he said, through teeth gritted with effort.  
  
"Well, I've brought along my own little piece of the Octavius fame." At this point, the front panel of the crate came crashing down, and Harry leapt out of the way to avoid being smashed. Serenely, Cassandra moved to stand by the dumbstruck young Osborn.  
  
"Oh my dear, sweet, holy God," Harry breathed as he gazed inside the crate. "The actuators."  
  
"The actuators," Cassie repeated, a twinge of mania detectable in her voice.  
  
At this point, Harry started to get afraid. "Cassandra, you're not going to—"  
  
"I am, Harry Osborn," she interrupted. "I'm going to do it now, today, right here, and I think you should take on the responsibility of finishing what your father started."  
  
"The Green Goblin?"  
  
"The one and only. Spider-Man has only had to deal with one enemy at a time. What do you think would happen if he suddenly had to deal with two? It's doom inevitably, and we'll get our revenge. Do it, Harry. For Norman." She sounded twisted, sadistic, possessed. But the horribly crazy gleam that was in her eye awoke in Harry something that seemed to want to...to cackle...like his father...  
  
And so he did. The manic screech of hysteria escaped from Harry, but he didn't jerk to a halt in fright like usual when he heard this mad laugh. He felt strong.  
  
Cassandra gesticulated for Harry to come and help her lug the platform on which the actuators sat out of its container. The two finally worked it out of the box and into the middle of the lab. Swiftly, Cassandra yanked off her blouse and bra, making Harry rather embarrassed at seeing her fully topless. Wordlessly, she stood in front of the actuators and pressed a button, causing the harness to close around her waist. A dark expression clouded her features as she hit the second button, which caused the metal spine to lay itself against her back, and she screamed, loud and high pitched, when the needles, sharp and vindictive, drove themselves through her skin and down into her spinal column, where she could actually feel the searing pain as they fused to her nerve bundle. When this torturous process was finished, which Harry had watched with some sort of morbid fascination, Cassandra gritted her teeth in pain and lifted the arms of the tentacles out of their brackets. She stepped down from the platform, picked up her shirt, and made a large rip in the back. She then took about two minutes to work herself back into her blouse. Once this was done, she wiped the tears of pain from her cheeks, narrowed her eyes dangerously, and raised herself up off the ground with the bottom two tentacles. Harry laughed nervously, but Cassandra all out howled. Looking down at Harry, she shouted, "The doctor is in!"


End file.
